Crane ticked it off on his fat fingers. "Pender of the Army, Bright of
the Navy, Jones of the Air Force, Hagen of the FBI, Wilson from
Treasury--they all trooped through here into your private conference
room." He pointed pompously at his own chest. "But Crane of the
Senate--"
"You forgot Birch of the State Department," Brent cut in. "Or hasn't he
arrived yet?"
"--Crane of the Senate is barred! Now just what in the hell--?"
There are times for tact and times for bluntness, and this was a time,
Brent decided, for the latter. "What goes on here, Senator," he said,
"is none of your business. Otherwise, you would have been invited."
Crane's face darkened and Brent thought pleasantly of a brain hemorrhage
blowing the top of his fat head off. But this was too much to hope for.
"Brent," Crane exploded, "I'll get you! So help me, I'll get you! Just
who the hell do you think you are--demeaning the dignity of the United
States Senate? Just who are you to say what the people should or should
not know?"
"Decisions of that nature are made upstairs, Senator. I don't presume to
possess the judgment needed in such matters."
"You're an arrogant bureaucrat! Your kind comes and goes because when
you get too goddamned arrogant the people rise up in their wrath and
knock you off."
Marcia Holly, Brent's secretary, was studiously transcribing some notes
and Brent turned his scowl on her because, damn it, she was laughing
like hell at the whole thing. And, by God, a secretary didn't have the
right to laugh at a United States Senator, even with her eyes, no matter
how much a congenital idiot he was.
"I'm sorry, Senator," Brent said. "If you have a complaint, please take
it up with my superiors. Just now I--"
"Your superiors? And who the devil are they? Who can find them? Where do
they have offices? Go around trying to find your superiors and nobody
ever heard of you."
Brent half smiled as he felt a sneaking admiration for Crane. The
son-of-a-bitch had a disarming quality of honesty. If he planned to
knife you, he drove straight in, the knife held high.
"One of the disadvantages of being a negative personality, Senator,"
Brent murmured.
"Sure! You're about as negative as a charging grizzly," Crane snorted
and headed for the door as though his air had been cut off.
After his bulk had vanished into the corridor, Brent turned a scowl on
Marcia Holly. "And what are you snickering about."
She raised large blue, innocent eyes. "Me? I? Oh, golly. I just found a
cute little Freudian slip in these notes and--"
"Shut up. Are they all here?"
"Birch of the State Department sent regrets. A duty call on the
Tasmanian Embassy or something."
"Okay--and next week he'll be screaming to high heaven about being left
out."
Marcia's laughing eyes agreed. "Ain't it the truth?" she marveled.
Brent strode past her and expertly mussed her sleek hairdo in a quick
gesture. As he entered his private conference room, he turned and
grinned at her silent fury.
Inside, they were all waiting for him, seated around a teakwood table.
The wall-to-wall carpeting was wine-red. The chairs were deep and
upholstered. And the men who sat in them were distinguished only by
their surroundings and their uniforms. Their metal and their worth were
hidden inside.
Brent moved to the end of the table and scanned them moodily. "Okay,
gentlemen. I'll talk. Then if you have any questions--shoot them." He
took a deep breath and began:
"We are faced with a situation that must be kept top secret for two
reasons: First, it may be the first move in an attempt to subjugate or
destroy our planet; two, it is so utterly ridiculous on its face that a
public announcement would be greeted by hoots of laughter from pole to
pole." Brent's ugly scowl deepened at what he seemed to feel was an
injustice. "Even the Eskimos would get a yack out of it."
The group waited, withholding judgment, evidently waiting to see whether
or not it was a laughing matter. They were conceding nothing. Brent
studied them for a moment and then went on.
"Last week, in Denver, early in the morning," he said, "a man was found
dead on a residential-section street. There was no apparent cause of
death. A routine autopsy revealed some peculiar things about the man's
insides. For one thing, he had two hearts--"
Jones of the Air Force, a dignified, gray-haired man, paused in firing
his cigar and gave the impression he was lighting his way through the
darkness. Bright of the Navy, a thin man with a huge Adam's apple,
allowed it to bob three times in deference to the startling nature of
Brent's statement. Pender of the Army raised one eyebrow and let it
fall. To a keen observer, Hagen of the FBI would have revealed prior
knowledge by reacting not at all.
His mind was on the kid. He was thinking, _Christ! With all the damned
miracle drugs and characters orbiting the earth in crazy capsules, they
still haven't figured out a way to keep a six-year-old from getting a
cold._ He remembered the kid waving from the window yesterday
morning--when he'd been ordered East to attend this clambake--standing
there beside Miriam, waving good-bye and barking like a sea lion. _What
the hell was wrong with doctors? Why didn't they get with it on a
stupidly simple thing like the common cold?_
" ... two hearts and--" Brent reached to the left and pulled down a
chart on a window shade-type rack that stood beside his chair, "--a
rather interesting arrangement of the internal organs." He pointed with
a thick finger. "You'll notice that the liver is exceptionally small,
while the kidneys are large enough to service a horse. You'll note also
that while the man had testicles, there is no prostrate gland."
The group waited in a kind of guarded abeyance that could be easily
sensed. Their silence gave the impression that they were asking: _Is
somebody kidding us?_
But there was certainly no lightness in Brent's manner. His arm dropped
and he scowled at the far end of the table as he said, "Now, the blood.
There was something strange about the blood--"
The door from Marcia Holly's reception room-office opened and she came
in silently, followed by a white-coated waiter who set a tray on the
table. The coffeepot on the tray was silver; the cups, fine china; the
napkins, linen.
"--something very strange about the blood in that it conformed to all
necessary specifications and yet it had a synthetic quality about it
..."
Goose pimples formed on Hagen's neck and walked gently down his spine.
Nothing was missing in this setup--synthetic blood, two hearts, oversize
kidneys. Hagen got a quick mental flash of a barker outside a circus
sideshow: _He walks like a man. He talks like a man. But for a thin
dime, folks, you can see--_
It was something to think and wonder about. And back in Chicago, he'd
had lots of company. Everybody in the office that night had wondered,
and you could see the vague uneasiness in their eyes as the creature
sat, acting like a human being and, at the same time, like nothing from
this world. You could see a vague revulsion in the people surrounding
the creature. There was also uncertainty, and this from men who were
required by their profession to be fairly certain about most things.
"The blood," Jones of the Air Force said. "Could it have been a--well, a
new kind of plasma?"
"Hardly. You see, the variation was almost theoretical, if you can
understand the term as I'm using it. Drawn from an ordinary human being,
it would not have been questioned. It was just that in the light of
other oddities in his man, it didn't seem right, somehow."
"Pretty vague," Bright of the Army said.
"This I'll grant you." Brent said. "Anybody for coffee?"
Nobody was for coffee so Marcia and the waiter retired and Brent said,
"Vague, I'll grant you. But let's get on with it. Two days later, a man,
in every way identical, was found lying in the street in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. He was alive, but in a dying condition, and he succumbed
on the way to the hospital. Cause of death, as in the first place,
undeterminable. But the medics think it was some malfunctioning of the
lungs.
"All in all, gentlemen, eight identical specimens have been picked up in
various American cities. Five are dead, two more are now in a comatose
condition, at last report, and may very well be dead at this time. One
is still alive and relatively healthy...."
Alive and relatively healthy. The son-of-a-bitch! Hagen felt an odd
senseless rage against the creature they'd picked up in a Chicago bar.
Ordinarily it would have been a simple bull-pen, night-court case--a
loud-mouth drunk refusing to pay for a drink. But much of his talk,
anent enemy invasion, internal destruction, and civilian chaos, had been
a little too rough for the other barflies to swallow, and complaints had
been made. Later, when Bureau men went around trying to get something
tangible in the way of evidence, they found themselves dealing in
frustration. The complainants had left without giving their names. The
barkeep really hadn't heard anything. The actual charges had gone up in
smoke. But by that time, Washington was very much interested. The man
was questioned and it was the damnedest thing Hagen had ever gone
through ...
"By identical," Jones of the Air Force said, "you of course mean--"
Brent's dark, knifelike eyes sliced out at Jones. "By identical, I mean
just that."
Bright's throat bobbed as the astonishing implication came home to him.
"Hell, man! You mean--"
"I mean these specimens do not merely bear a resemblance to each other.
They were not just similar as to organisms and physical structure. They
were all _exactly_ alike; as alike as eight new cars of the same make
and model lined up side by side ..."
_Identical._ Hagen didn't know anything about that. He hadn't seen the
others. But he knew that there was something frightening about the one
they'd picked up in Chicago. At first glance he could have been Mr.
Anybody, from Anywhere, U.S.A. A youngish-looking forty, you would have
figured, with a sprinkling of gray at the temples and a face women could
have found interesting. He had the unpaunched figure of a man who had
taken good care of himself; he was quietly dressed in a blue suit; he
looked like a decent-enough guy who just happened to have gotten stiff
on the double hooker he'd ordered and sounded off without meaning to.
In fact, he was still sounding off when they got him into the
interrogation room. And when the barflies called his talk treasonable,
they hadn't been fooling.
Brent said, "Identical, gentlemen, even to the finger-prints; to the
very last ridge."
Pender's eyebrows tried to crawl up his forehead and disappear into his
hairline. "That's utterly and completely ridiculous."
Brent smiled. "Then, at least, I've gotten one idea over to you--that a
public release on this thing would be greeted with hoots of derision by
the realistic American public."
"And perhaps deservedly so?"
"I think not," Brent said gravely.
_Is it some incredibly ingenious hoax?_ Hagen asked himself the question
and found no answer. He only remembered the words and the eyes and the
tone of the creature that walked like a man ...
"He was our--father. They had him a long time before we--came. He was
our father, and after we came they told us what we were to know and we
knew--it."
There it was--that odd little break, cutting off the word at the end of
each sentence. It gave the impression of a mind groping, yet not really
groping; a mind sure of itself, yet wondering.
"What did you know?"
"We knew what we were--for. Our--reason. We knew what we were created to
do--here."
"How many of you were there?"
"Ten of--us."
"You said, 'created to do here.' Where do you come from?"
"There."
"Where is _there_?"
At this point the man or the creature, or whatever you wanted to call
him, pointed upward.
At this point, Cantrell, another of the interrogation group, turned away
in disgust. "A kook! A kook with a religious compulsion. A character,
and we got called out of bed to--"
"--to get you ready to be destroyed," the creature cut in.
"By fire and brimstone on judgment day?" Cantrell asked sarcastically.
"No. By rendering you helpless by--"
Here the creature swallowed, blinked and looked surprised--and changed
magically. He--if it really was a he--didn't jump up and kick a hole in
the ceiling or anything like that. In fact, nothing tangible happened.
There just seemed to be an invisible barrier that rose suddenly around
him.
Then there was the thing that chilled every man in the room; a thing as
tangible as the walls and the furniture; yet a thing no man could define
in words.
This was when Cantrell, a high-strung individual at best, reacted
violently to the change in the creature. In an instinctive blaze of
anger and frustration, Cantrell reached out and slapped him brutally
across the face.
Velie, the agent in charge, also acted instinctively as he lunged
forward to restrain Cantrell. But then he froze, as did all the men in
the room, to stare.
It was not what the prisoner did; it was what he did not do. There was
absolutely no reaction to the blow--no reaction physically, emotionally,
or mentally. It was as though the blow had not been struck; as though
this were some kind of a moving, breathing zombie.
So tangible, so seemingly sourceless was this feeling of loathing, that
Hagen would have been sure it had affected only himself if he had not
seen its effect on the others.
Yet none of them referred to it. Nor was this strange, because there
just weren't any words to describe the feeling one gets from contact
with a pleasant-faced, quietly dressed example of the walking dead.
Backing away from this powerful emotional reaction, Hagen forced himself
onto an intellectual level, and asked himself what had brought about the
change in the creature. Why had it--Hagen now had to regard the strange,
walking enigma as neuter--after functioning to some extent as a human,
reverted suddenly to what seemed to be its natural state?
He conceded that if he knew the answer to that one, he could be of great
service to the FBI and the nation--and, no doubt to the world ...
Pender of the Army now had a question. "What information have you gotten
from the surviving man?"
"Not a great deal, as yet. However, in our experiments we've learned
something rather frightening."
"And what's that?"
"He is totally impervious to drugs of any description whatever."
"That's impossible!"
"So it would seem. But the sodium pentathol injection he was given could
just as well have been so much water."
The group pondered this information, each after his own fashion. Then
Birch of the State Department made a precise, scholarly observation.
"Incredible!"
Brent smiled faintly. "One point of vital importance. We do know that
there were, originally, ten of these creatures roaming the country.
Eight are accounted for. The other two are still at large."
Jones of the Air Force asked, "Were all eight apprehended in large
cities?"
"Yes."
"Shouldn't that mean something to us?"
"Well, it's a pattern, all right, but no one's been able to give it any
meaning--so far."
No one had any further comment on that point. Brent waited a moment and
then threw the bombshell. "We are quite sure that these creatures are of
extraterrestrial origin."
For a time it seemed as though Brent's bombshell had been a dud. There
was no comment from around the table--no sound of any kind. But each man
was evaluating the information after his own fashion. The key thought,
no doubt, other than a natural and instinctive moment of sheer unbelief,
was that this marked a giant, forward lunge in world history. And also,
no doubt, in this group of responsible men, there was a common question:
It would appear that our world had at last come to grips with the
universe around it. Was our world ready?
And there was general doubt.
Now the questions came. From whence? To what purpose? Hostile? Benign?
Dangerous? Harmless?
"What other information was gained from the creature?"
"Very little. He knows our language. He is here for a definite and
clear-cut purpose. Probably hostile. But what he was supposed to do or
how he was supposed to accomplish it we do not know."
"Do you think you will eventually get these answers?"
"I think," and there was an ominous note in Brent's voice, "that we
will. If not from the creature himself, then in some sudden and far more
violent manner."
This statement also had impact. It seemed that the group had overlooked
Brent's previous revelation that ten of the creatures had arrived and
only eight had been accounted for.
"Perhaps," Jones said hopefully, "whatever their plan, it required the
participation of all ten."
"In that case," Brent said quietly, "we have nothing to worry about. At
least, at the moment."
"Are you of the opinion that these creatures have been dropped anywhere
else on earth?"
"All I can say on that score is that all seems quiet around the world.
Of course, if Russia has rounded up a quota of these two-hearted
characters they wouldn't be likely to tell us. They certainly haven't
shown up in the European countries with whom we consult. All I can say
about the situation behind the Iron Curtain is that they have made no
inquiries of us relative to the matter--and we certainly have made no
inquiries of them. Also, our people in the sensitive Eastern areas
report nothing indicative."
Pender bobbed his throat and said, "You told us you're sure the
creatures are from outer space. That makes our interests with Russia
mutual. Therefore, why shouldn't open inquiry be made?"
Brent frowned. "An entirely logical question. As a matter of fact, I
recommended that course. Nothing has been down in that direction,
however. At least, not to my knowledge."
"I assume the White House knows about this."
Brent nodded but did not elaborate, perhaps because to have done so
would have tended to clarify his own connection with the top spot in the
nation; a relationship accepted but not thoroughly understood by any man
present.
"May I inquire as to Senator Crane?" Bright asked.
"I see no reason why you shouldn't."
"He was in your anteroom when I entered. Obviously he was mad. I assume
that was because you excluded him from this meeting."
"Correct." Brent Taber's eyes turned a trifle steely. "In fact, I'd like
to know exactly how he found out about the meeting."
No one offered any data on this point and Bright asked, "Is it wise to
keep information of this vital nature from the United States Senate?"
"The information has not been kept from the United States Senate," Brent
corrected. "Let's say it has been kept from certain United States
Senators on the theory that the interests of the nation can best be
served by a closed-door policy on this matter until it becomes
clarified."
Whether they agreed or not, the men present accepted this as coming from
the top, and they would automatically abide by it.
"I suppose," Pender said, "that every effort is being made to apprehend
the missing pair."
"Every effort of which we are capable."
"What conclusions have you drawn from the fact that these ten creatures
are identical?"
"That they are not human beings, in the strictest sense of the word,"
Brent replied gravely.
"Then what are they?"
"We believe they are androids."
"And what the hell is an android?" Jones snapped.
"A synthetic." Brent smiled just slightly. "In this case, men not born
of women. All this is detailed in the confidential report that will be
handed to you when you leave. The report, incidentally, is slanted in a
way that obscures its vital nature, but on the basis of what has been
said at this meeting, I'm sure you'll find all your answers."
Brent paused, waiting for questions. When none came, he said, "I guess
that about covers it, gentlemen--at least, all that we have at the
moment. You'll be kept informed. The meeting is adjourned."
He glanced around. "Oh, by the way, as you'll note in the confidential
report, this project will be identified as 'Operation Blue Sky.'"
"Where did they get that one?" Jones snorted.
"I don't know. The term originated higher up. Possibly," Brent murmured,
"because somewhere out in the blue sky lies the answer." His manner
changed and he glanced briskly around. "Would anyone care for a cup of
coffee?"
No one was interested in coffee and the group filed out.
* * * * *
Ten minutes later, the white-coated waiter came to pick up the things.
He crossed to the coffeepot, lifted it, and took a tiny device out of
the hidden space formed by the pot's legs and its bottom. This, he
slipped into his pocket before picking up the tray and going out as he'd
come.
3
Frank Corson got what was possibly the greatest shock of his life when
he walked into Ward Five and saw William Matson lying in bed. It wasn't
so much that he hadn't expected it. He had, because he was too firmly
locked in reality to believe the man he saw on the Upper East Side could
possibly have been the broken-legged Matson. Still, seeing Matson in bed
had the effect of bringing unreality into a realm where he had to cope
with it. Perhaps, during the trip back to the hospital, he'd been
mystically apprised of what lay ahead and wanted subconsciously to avoid
it. Perhaps his shock was a cringing away from facing a problem.
At the moment, of course, he didn't know what the problem was. There was
a mystery here, but only that, and his first thought was to report it to
higher authority--the business about the two hearts--and have it
investigated. With this thought in mind, he walked down the corridor and
reached for the knob of the door marked _Superintendent_.
But quite suddenly he stopped, reversed himself, and went back to Ward
Five. He approached Matson's bed and looked down at him. Matson, empty
of expression, stared back, and again Frank Corson sensed rather than
saw the emptiness behind the eyes.
"How are you feeling?"
"I feel very--well."
"It wasn't a bad break. How would you like to leave the hospital?"
"I would like to leave the--hospital."
Frank felt an odd, inner frustration. What in the devil was wrong with
the man? He sounded like a child just learning the language. Yet there
was nothing else to indicate backwardness. He looked pretty much like a
self-sufficient, self-contained adult.
"I can sign you out--get you a pair of crutches. By the way, I don't
think the hospital got your home address."
"My home--address?"
"Yes. The place you live." There was a pause, and finally Frank realized
the man wasn't going to answer. "Your home, man. Where you live."
"I'm looking for a--home."
"Oh, I see. New in town?"
"Yes, new in--town."
"I have a place," Frank said, and it seemed to him as though someone
else were talking from within him--that he was only a listener. "You can
crowd in with me until you get settled somewhere."
"I can crowd in with--you?"
"Okay?"
"Okay."
"Fine, I'll see that you're signed out. Ever walk on crutches before?"
"I never walked on--crutches."
"Nothing much to it. You'll get the knack."
Frank left the bed and headed toward the office, asking himself as he
went, _Why in hell did I do that?_ Then he found the reason--or at least
a reason that would suffice.
The discovery of a man with two hearts might be worth something. At
least, it would put Frank Corson, unknown intern, into the spotlight for
a while. This was pretty vague thinking but it made a kind of sense and
Frank settled for it in lieu of trying to analyze the strange
compulsion, the odd foreboding deep within him.
_Here's a thing that might do me some good_, he told himself. _Why not
take advantage of it?_
Perhaps he was rigidly blocking out the cause of his unrest--that he was
more or less dependent upon Rhoda Kane for the luxuries that were
involved in seeing her, having a relationship with her. He could neither
ask her to dine with him on his level, at some place like Nedick's, nor
could he refuse to go with her to The Forum or the Four Seasons. He
could not take her to his miserable furnished room on East 13th Street,
nor refuse rendezvous in her Upper East Side apartment.
He was trapped and was thus desperately looking for a way out.
And somehow, grotesquely, there were indications that a man with two
hearts might help to provide the answer.
* * * * *
The tape recorder stuck to the bottom of the Taber conference coffeepot
had cost Senator Crane a hundred dollars. He had now listened to it four
times and was pacing the floor of his office, scowling darkly at the
walls. An android! What in hell was an android? What kind of a stupid,
impossible thing was this?
In a flash of panic, Crane wondered if it was all a diabolical
machination of Brent Taber's. Maybe Taber knew all about the recorder.
Maybe the whole meeting was an elaborate plant to maneuver an earnest,
alert senator into making a public fool of himself. Taber was certainly
capable of such a thing.
And that was how it had begun to look. Still, that was ridiculous. The
Army, the Navy, the Air Force--they were all involved. Only
Congress--the true representatives of the people--had been ignored. And,
by God, he'd do something about it!
Crane stopped pacing but continued to scowl at the wall. Now, what
department of research could find him some data on androids?
* * * * *
Les King was awakened by a knock on his door. He rolled over, blinked
and looked at his watch. A little after two in the afternoon, which was
equivalent to midnight for Les. He pulled on his robe and went to the
door and opened it.
He blinked.
Sure, no doubt about it. The man standing there was the one he'd snapped
on Park Avenue the other A.M., lying among a bunch of pigeons,
with a broken leg. But evidently that hadn't been the case because his
legs were okay now. It couldn't even have been a sprain, judging by the
way he was standing there. He was a fairly tall, good-looking guy in his
middle forties maybe--brown hair, blue eyes with a kind of vacant look
about them.
And there was something else, goddamn it; something that kept evading
Les; something that had bothered him when he'd first developed the
print. _Let's see, what is this guy's name? The ambulance intern found
it in his jacket pocket on a half-torn identification card. William
Matson._
But, damn it, there was something else.
"Mr. Lester--King?"
"Right. What can I do for you?"
"I had trouble in locating--you. I wish to make a--purchase."